FILE - Austin Collie of the Colts lies motionless after a second-quarter hit against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Lucas Oil Stadium on Dec. 19, 2010. / Robert Scheer / The Star

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The union should have held the NFL’s feet to the fire and put the league on trial for the ignorant way they handled concussions during the NFL’s Dark Ages. What did they know? When did they know it? How can $765 million be enough for all the lives diminished by depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s?

It’s not so easy when you’re one of those former players who deals with the pain and memory loss and mood swings every day.

This week, I talked to a former Colts player who preferred I didn’t use his name. He was part of the class-action lawsuit.

“Part of me wishes we would have taken this to court,” he said, “but for me, a guy who’s got medical bills to pay and needs financial help, this is going to make a difference in my life.”

Some of these men don’t have a year or two, or even more, for the suit to go to full litigation. They have to make ends meet.

“There are pros and cons (to the settlement),” said Antoine Bethea, one of the Colts’ union representatives. “The players’ association was looking for $2 billion. On one end, it’s good for some of the retired players to get that money. On the other end, the league isn’t going to be up on the stand. And that’s what we wanted. We wanted to see them under oath and be forced to spell out what went on 10, 15 years ago. Now they don’t have to open up their records and come clean.”

Did the NFL get off easy? There’s no question it did. That dollar figure is a pittance for a league that makes billions of dollars every year. It would have been nice to know the ultimate truth.

And yet, we are not 40 years old, incapable of working because of memory loss and mood swings, struggling to make ends meet on a daily basis.

If anything good has come from all of this — and it’s hard to find a rainbow at the end of all the suicides and the maladies that have beset former players — it’s that today’s players go into every game with their eyes open.

The science of brain injuries is continuing to evolve, but the current NFL player knows. He knows he’s putting his body, and especially his brain, on trial every time he takes the football field.

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“It’s about chasing the dream,” said Colts defensive end Cory Redding, who has suffered two concussions in his career, one major. “I don’t think about (the consequences). A lot of us, when we start playing, it’s because of the situations we’re in. We’ve got holes in the floor. No air conditioning, no heat, we’ve got rats and roaches; you think they’re family members. You don’t eat well but two, three times a week. You never see your parents. Mom’s working three jobs.

“That’s why you play this game, to fend for yourself and your family. So you don’t worry about that stuff (with concussions and their aftermath). So many of us just want to get out of the ’hood. The way I look at it, my life is in God’s hands. Whatever happens, happens.”

I’ve talked to dozens of former NFL players over the years, all of them suffering from the debilitating aftereffects of having played their brutal game, and every last one of them says the same thing:

I’d do it all over again.

“I have no regrets I played professional football,” said the former player. “Even if I knew then what I know now, I’d still play the game.”

The good news is, today’s players know what they’re getting into. They know what concussions can lead to — Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, dementia, Alzheimer’s. They know the risks and the rewards, armed with all the current information. Years from now, nobody will want to hear, “Well, the league withheld information from us, mishandled us, and now we’re due millions in damages.”

There’s only so much the teams can do; these players have to take care of themselves as well.

“It’s hard because guys don’t want to come out of a game,” Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri said. “At this age, they all think they’re invincible. And they’re afraid, and for good reason, that if they come out, somebody else is going to come in and take their job. I’ve seen guys purposely do poorly on their baseline (concussion) tests so they can get back on the field more quickly.”

To its credit, the NFL has come a very long way in its handling of head injuries.

“I remember when I started in the league,” Vinatieri said. “They’d hold up a couple of fingers. ‘Two? OK, you’re fine. You can go back in.’ Now there are independent neurologists who monitor everything. There are protocols we go through. The difference is dramatic.”

Some of us wanted blood from the NFL, a full accounting of the ways they mishandled brain injuries over the years. But for the men who are hurting so badly now, the men who have bills that are due today, this is a step in the right direction.